design

Desirable Thing No. 1

New computer technology creates new desires and needs. I want to add a list of desirable things not necessarily new things but just the stuff of desire.

Desirable thing no 1. Mac Computer. I began ages ago using Mac computers at school, the first computer I bought was a Mac. Then mac died a bit and I went through a series of PCâ??s from brand names to unknowns. From Windows to Linux. But last year I bought a Mac again. Its design, functionality and all round ability to anticipate and solve problems have made me return to where I began.

Where it all began…

Posted on by mklang

Wireless

Our department has formally changed faculty from the Business School to the IT-university. The IT-university students all have laptops with wireless access which makes teaching an interesting experience. Recently a law professor at the University of Memphis banned laptops in class since he argued that the students are not paying attention to the lecture but are more concerned with their notes. Among the problems with connected laptops are that the students are not even concerned with their notes but are more focused on browsing, messaging and mailing.

This is not the point of this post. The point is the classroom of the future needs to be designed with a lot more thought as to the users need for electricity.

The unelegant current solution

Posted on by mklang

Theme Competition Deadline Extended

The theme competition for WordPress 2.0 Themes continues. I am looking forward to seeing the results.

After much thought and input from the wordpress theming community, Iâ??ve decided to extend the theme submission deadline to May 1st, 2006, 12pm PST. This will allow ample time for theme design, locating new sponsors, and spreading the word in general. Please update your calendars and thanks again to everyone thatâ??s supporting the WordPress Theme Competition. Winners will be announced May 15th, 2006.

The competition blog is at www.arenawp.com

Posted on by mklang

Tobias Skog

Tobias Skog’s licenciate thesis Ambient Information Visualization (University of Göteborg) is available. It deals with various issues regarding informative art, everyday displays as well as their utility and evaluations.

The thesis question is “What issues are of central importance when designing ambient information visualization?”

Great work Tobias.

Posted on by mklang

human enhancement

A new book from the on the subject of human enhancement entitled â??Better Humans? The politics of human enhancement and life extensionâ?? (edited by
Paul Miller & James Wilsdon) is out now and available for download.

This is from the online blurb:

We all share a desire for self-improvement. Whether through education, work, parenthood or adhering to religious or ethical codesâ?¦more consumerist pursuits hold the key to self-improvement: working out in the gym, wearing makeup, buying new clothes, or indulging in a spot of cosmetic surgery.â?¦Within the next 30 years, it may become commonplace to alter the genetic make-up of our children, to insert artificial implants into our bodies, or to radically extend life expectancy.

The book is a collection of 12 essays on the implications of human enhancement technologies and includes chapters like â??Is it wrong to try to improve human nature?â?? (by Arthur Caplan, â??Brain gainâ?? (by Steven Rose), â??Better by designâ?? (by Sarah Franklin) & â??The unenhanced underclassâ?? (by Gregor Wolbring).

via Techne

Posted on by mklang

Book Cover Art

Designing book covers is a difficult and underestimated art. To anyone who has finally finished a book the ordeal of book cover design is awful. Naturally if there is an art then there must be a group of afficionados & critics. Enter Book Covers, a site dedicated to viewing and discussing book covers.

I managed to write this post without even attempting a joke about judging books by their covers!

Posted on by mklang

WordPress 2.0 Theme Design Competition

Welcome to the WordPress 2.0 Theme Design Competition pages.

Anything related to this competition will be posted in a new entry. This new entry can be found at the side bar under title “Pages”. This including the competition announcement, result, updates, rules and prizes.

Open Competition: Internationally
Competition Title: WordPress 2.0 Theme Design Competition
Date : 15th January 2006 – 28th February 2006
Result: 7th March 2006

In this competition, there are 10 judges. I won’t reveal any of them until the result had been announced. Each judges are given 50 judging points for each templates (1 as the worst and 50 as the best) . At the end of the day, the templates with most point will walk away with the prizes.

The competition is here!
Posted on by mklang

Intelligent Design?

BBC report that the American Supreme Court have banned the teaching of “intelligent design“. While intelligent design sounds like a valuable course at a technical university it actually refers to the newest form of anti-Darwinism. Basically the idea is that nature is too complex for natural selection.

Do you want proof that there must be an “intelligent” force guiding the choices nature makes then look at any complex animal or organism. This is of course bull. If anyone wants to believe – thats fine. But proof? No way. Also I would like to know if these people find “flawed” or even really bad design in nature as a proof that unintelligent design forces are at work?

platypus
Is the Platypus evidence of humorous design?*
To point at an anthill, beehive, weaver bird nest or the human eye and say “oh! thats complex” is fine. But to take complexity as a proof of a higher power is to regress “…back to cavorting druids, death by stoning and dung for dinner” (Blackadder). Historically, that which we did not understand was referred back to some higher being. But this gets scary today when we have both more knowledge and methods for understanding more of the truth than ever before and still some people prefer the mythology to the facts. Its time to face it (if you have not already done so) Darwinism may not be what you want to hear but it is a fundamentally better theory than anything else around.

However since Darwinism is not compatible with a litteral interpretation with the bible schools have attempted to ban the teaching of evolutionary theory. Therefore to comply with this certain schools of thought began developing intelligent design. Its not a well grounded theory – it does not have to be since it demands faith rather than proof.

Anyway the US Supreme Court have now found that Darwinian evolution must be taught as fact in biology lessons. Good work!

—

*Robin Williams about the platypus:
“Do you think God gets stoned? Take a look at the platypus… I think you think he might.” (mimes toking on a joint) “Hey Darwin! Yo. Here ya go! I’m gonna take a beaver, and put a duck’s bill on it.” (cackles stonily) “Then, I’m gonna give it webbed feet, and it’s gonna live in water. Then (tokes again) it’s gonna be a mammal, but it’s gonna lay eggs! Muahahahaha! Hey, I’m God, what’re you gonna do, eh?”

Posted on by mklang

Disruptive Technology

Is it a sign of senility or hubris that I occasionally post pieces of my thesis work in this blog? No idea. But here is a piece on disruptive technology.

While in many cases a disruptive technology can be seen as a technology that replaces the incumbent technology one must not forget that this replacement also displaces the social organisation around the displaced technology. Therefore printing presses replaced the scriptoria and also change the role of the scribe. Railways replaced canals and also changed the way in which the social organisation around the canals functioned. Therefore railroads did not only make an impact on the barge pilot but also on the bargeman, lock keeper, canal owners, canal-side innkeepers, barge builders, waterway engineers and the horse trade (most barges were horse drawn). This process is not only one of historical interest. Examples of disruptive technologies are all around us. It is, in fact, a continual process. Digital cameras are replacing photographic film, flash drives replace floppy disks, DVD players replace VHS players. Each change brings has social and economic effects to a larger of smaller degree.

Actually I wanted to use something else but after looking around I could not find a good work on the social history of writing and writing implements. Not languages but a social history of putting text on paper. This feels like a book I would like to read. Instead I found Henry Petroski’s book The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance which was not as good as I hoped it would be. I thought it would be a social history but it turned out to be more of a vague technical history which makes brief stops at erratic points in the development of the pencil. But to be fair I have only read a third of the book – so I still might change my mind.

Posted on by mklang

The patent myth

An important myth in our society is: Inventors make important stuff, Important stuff is patented and Patents equal money. Through Slashdot I came across this article in USA today

“Search for the most prolific inventors is a patent struggle Tuesday December 6, 8:44 pm ET

What living person holds the most U.S. patents? In this era of information and lightning searches – when patents are both more valuable than ever and a source of raging controversy – you’d think such a simple question would be easy to answer.”

The thing is what is it the most prolific US inventor was doing? Apparently floral related patents.

“Weder…has his name on 1,321 patents. Almost all have to do with items you’d find at a florist. Weder’s most recent patent – No. 6,962,021, granted Nov. 8 – is for a sleeve for holding a group of flowers. Before that, on Oct. 11, Weder was issued a patent titled, “Method of covering a flower pot.” On Sept. 20, he was issued a patent titled, “Method of covering a flower pot or floral grouping.””

While I am sure tha this is important stuff in Mr Weder’s business is it really the stuff that patent mythology should be about? Another example among the top patent holders was Mr Yamazaki

“…the USPTO database turns up 1,432 patents bearing his name, whupping both Edison and Weder. Yamazaki’s most recent patent, granted Nov. 22, was titled, “Reflective liquid crystal display panel and device using same.” His first patent, for a computer chip design, was granted in 1980. Yamazaki has averaged about a patent a week for 25 years.”

Can it be possible to invent something worth patenting every week for 25 years? The ideal of the patent as the icon of the industrial age seems to have moved along to another dimension…

Ok so I am not sure what this means. But it just seems strange. Not wrong, but strange. That patents are granted so readily. In the case of the floral patents – do all these patents really qualify as inventions? In the case of Mr Yamazaki, does an patentable increase of knowledge in society occur every week? For 25 years? Either we should interprete this to mean that the rest of us are bone idle, totally intellectually worthless or both. Or people like Mr Yamzaki and Mr Weder are their fields equivalents of Mozart.

Posted on by mklang